Happy Black Monday, Joanna here.

Stocks and crypto went into freefall this weekend after a mass selloff.

Bitcoin plummeted below $50,000, as the crypto market fell almost 17% in 24 hours to $1.8 trillion. 

Even amid the bloodbath, Bitcoin, and thus much of crypto, remains a Donald Trump trade, Bernstein analysts say.

Crypto traders see the former president as the more crypto-friendly candidate, and his odds of winning in November are driving prices, they say.

However, as DL News correspondent Ben Weiss writes, the crypto industry’s campaign donations may not be quite as huge as initially thought. 

Media — including the Washington Post in an opinion piece — reported that the Fairshake political action committee has amassed a war chest exceeding $200 million for pro-industry candidates. 

When Ben scrutinised donations to the PAC, however, he found that the amount it has raised is really closer to $162 million. 

Ben’s number tallies with data from Follow The Crypto, a crypto lobby spend tracker created by sceptic and blogger Molly White.

The discrepancy between Ben’s count and the $200 million figure is due to the double counting of donations. 

Ben’s reporting also shows that it’s worth scrutinising numbers often cited by journalists, especially during high-stakes elections.

That $200 million figure seemed legit.

It was reported by the lobbying database OpenSecrets, and repeated widely in news reports to support the idea that there is a well-funded crypto lobby.

I wrote in this newsletter last week about how polls commissioned by the crypto industry shows that voters care — because of course they do.

The problem comes in when journalists and politicians pick up these figures and run with them without question. 

Another example of a big number often repeated in the media is Coinbase’s figure that 52 million Americans own crypto. 

That sounds impressive, but does it really tell us that there’s a 52 million-strong population waiting to be mobilised — as the industry and politicians believe?  

How many of those people, for example, were exposed to the bankruptcies of Celsius, FTX, and Terraform Labs and are now inclined to vote against crypto-friendly candidates? 

When it comes to Fairshake, it’s perhaps instructive to look beyond the numbers at who is donating.

While there are a handful of small donations listed from ordinary citizens, for the most part its crypto industry giants and well-heeled investors. 

Coinbase has donated $46.5 million, Ripple $45 million, and Andreessen Horowitz $44 million. 

One could conclude that it’s evidence not of broad voter interest, but of well-funded organisations trying to shape policy to benefit their businesses. 

Either way, scepticism around reported numbers is always a good idea.

Reach out to me at [email protected].

ICYMI

• The French markets regulator said it is open for applications from crypto-asset service providers ahead of the next phase of the EU’s Markets in Crypto Assets.

• Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon will be extradited to his native South Korea, a Montenegro court said.

• An artistic duo is suing the US Securities and Exchange Commission to prove that non-fungible tokens are not unregistered securities.

Story of the Week

Why these libertarian economists oppose Trump’s Bitcoin ‘stockpile‘ idea

US Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump and Senator Cynthia Lummis both floated the idea of a national Bitcoin “stockpile.” Lummis even filed a bill that would direct Treasury to buy $1 billion Bitcoin. Economists told DL News the idea was “utter nonsense.”

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